St. Martin's Chamber Choir: Interim Service

After serving as the singer representative to the board of directors of St. Martin's Chamber Choir in 2017, Kathleen Schmidt stepped in to serve as the organization's interim general manager for the remaining 3 months of the 2017-2018 concert season and fiscal year. During that period, Kathleen managed two successful fundraising events and provided continuity and stability to enable the choir to hold its final two concerts of the season. When a permanent general manager was hired, Kathleen remained in her role to train and assist the new manager.

The Pearl Street Arts Center: Dreaming of an Arts Center for Denver

Byers Junior High School as it looks today.

In 2007, Kathleen Schmidt returned home to Denver from Chicago and took up residence in the West Washington Park neighborhood, one block from the vacant school building where her high school, Denver School of the Arts, was formerly located. After walking by the building daily and lamenting its disrepair and dilapidation, Kathleen decided to take action. "Wouldn't it be nice if DSA alumni could still use the building to work on their craft?" She thought. "Even better, wouldn't it be nice if the entire city could use the building as an arts center for Denver?"

With that moment of inspiration, the concept of the Pearl Street Arts Center was born. The organization had a dual purpose: to restore and revitalize the historic property of Byers Junior High School, and implement within it an arts center for use by the Denver public. The arts center would feature a core staff of faculty and coordinators to offer classes, events, and programming in all the art forms, and the rest of the property would be rented openly to individuals and small groups of artists - studio teachers, small ensembles, etc.

Kathleen sought out advice from city and state agencies such as the Landmark Preservation Commission and Historic Denver to determine what the needs of the historic property would be. She pitched the proposal to a supportive then-Mayor John Hickenlooper, and fostered relationships with the neighborhood association and the city council representative for the district. Together with a dynamic board of directors, Kathleen became a stakeholder in discussions with the building's owners, the Denver Public Schools, as reviews and evaluations of the building's future were assessed.

The project was active from 2007 until 2009, when the onslaught of the Great Recession began overwhelming the involved parties. Board members began fearing for their professions. Individuals experienced layoffs. Then Kathleen herself was laid off from her position at the Colorado Symphony. With a retreating board, a nervous and timid school district hesitant to discuss use of their property, and ultimately the loss of her own job, Kathleen was forced to abandon the project before it ever reached full fruition as a 501c3 organization.

Today, the Byers Junior High School has been resurrected into new life as a campus of the Denver School of Science and Technology, or DSST, a public school magnet program for middle and high school-age children. Kathleen is proud to have created a project which centered the community's attention on the need to restore this beautiful historic landmark.

A photograph of Byers Junior High School circa 1930-1940. Courtesy of the digital collections of the Denver Public Library.

FORMER BOARD MEMBERS:Josiah Johnson, artist and vice-president+Karen Gerrity, former deputy director of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, or SCFD+Obadiah Ariss, former grant-writer for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra+Larry Theis, chair of the executive committee for Holme Roberts & Owen LLP+Molly Keegan, former dean of business and finance for the Sturm Law School of the University of Denver+Jana Clark, former founding faculty of Denver School of the Arts+Bret Johnson, architect and historic preservation specialist, Bret Johnson Architecture